


a matchmaking mission

by downn_in_flames



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (for me at least), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Everyone's Oblivious, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Valentine's Day, because i have a negative amount of self-control, i literally wrote the last 10k of this over 3 days because i got possessed by some sort of fic demon, that's SO MANY WORDS in SO LITTLE TIME, there's a bonus smut chapter now, this fic somehow has 4 different points of view in it, this is peak idiots to lovers content, which i suppose explains how it got so long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22649923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downn_in_flames/pseuds/downn_in_flames
Summary: James Potter has a mission: get Sirius Black and Remus Lupin to finally admit that they both fancy the pants off each other by Valentine's Day.His partner in crime? Lily Evans, Remus' flatmate, who he also happens to be slightly in love with.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 339





	1. Chapter 1

**_JAMES POTTER, T-MINUS 3 DAYS_ **

James' mother always told him not to meddle in places he didn't belong.

Which was real rich coming from her, given that Euphemia Potter would probably meddle in nearly every aspect of James' life given the opportunity, but she'd insisted that a mother being invested in her son's well-being was a totally different concept entirely. But James meddling in his friends' lives? Entirely off limits, she'd told him. Highly dangerous territory.

And like many other tidbits of motherly advice he's received over the years, he's made the (questionable) executive decision to ignore it completely.

In his defense, James is largely convinced that meddling is the _only_ way anything's going to happen at this point; his idiot of a flatmate has fancied the bloke down the hall for _months_ now, and it's rather obvious to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention that Remus fancies Sirius right back.

Unless you're Sirius, that is.

Remus is also equally oblivious, so really, James really has no other option than to get involved himself. Otherwise, he'll probably be subjected to their stupid pining glances every day for the rest of his life, because it's becoming rather clear to him that neither of them are going to own up to their feelings themselves.

It's ridiculous, really.

So since they've left him no other choice, the obvious next step here is to recruit a partner in crime. And James has the perfect one: Remus' flatmate.

Who James just so happens to be _slightly_ in love with.

Lily Evans is, in his mind, quite possibly the most stunning human being to ever grace the planet with her presence. She's fit as hell, which is admittedly the first thing James noticed about her, but she's also brilliant and sarcastic and passionate, and every time she opens her mouth, James becomes just a little bit more infatuated.

For the first few weeks after Lily and Remus had moved into the flat three doors down from him and Sirius, James had assumed Lily was Remus' girlfriend. And it felt fitting, in a karmic sort of way - it'd be just the perfect sort of hell for both him _and_ Padfoot to both be madly attracted to two people in a happy relationship with one another.

Although really, the news that they were just completely platonic roommates has created a different, but equally torturous kind of hell. Because if she's _not_ in a relationship, it means there's nothing stopping James from actually having a shot with her.

Well, nothing except his fantastic ability to put his foot in his mouth every time he even so much as attempts to flirt with her.

It's really quite pathetic, the way he gets around her. He's never been _bad_ with girls - he was known in secondary school for being a massive flirt, for heaven's sake - so the fact that this one redhead sends every suave comment he's got right out the window and turns his brain to putty is absurd and massively unfair, really.

And even when he _does_ manage to say something remotely smooth, she just flushes and laughs it off, making it obvious that she sees him as nothing more than a friend.

So honestly, it would be in his best interest emotionally to just avoid Lily altogether, especially with Valentine's Day looming and all those stupid fucking teddy bears and chocolates and pink hearts serving as a constant reminder that the one girl he'd really like to be taking on a date is completely and entirely uninterested in him.

But he's putting that particular self-serving interest aside in favour of helping his best friend. Lily's undoubtedly the best person for this job, given that she's Remus' roommate and has the same level of vested interest in seeing Sirius and Remus get together as he does.

Which has brought him here, knocking on Lily and Remus' door while he _knows_ that Remus has class and Lily doesn't, just so he can recruit her for this task.

There's some rustling on the other side of the door after he knocks, and then the door swings open to reveal Lily, looking a bit perplexed. She was clearly in the middle of tying her hair up when he knocked, because she's still wrapping an elastic around the giant mass of auburn hair atop her head with one hand as she appraises him.

"James?" she says, eyeing him. "What's up?"

"I - I'm here on a matchmaking mission," he tells her, determined not to get distracted by the way that the green in her tank top matches her eyes, and how one strap of it is dangling precariously off her freckled shoulder to reveal a black bra strap, and -

Mission. He's here on a mission.

She looks at him apprehensively. "Matchmaking mission?"

"For your roommate and my roommate, both of whom are entirely oblivious sods," he explains.

She softens at that - whatever tension the phrase 'matchmaking mission' had originally brought about in her has faded away at his elaboration. "They're not the only ones, but go on."

"I want to set them up - I'm _positive_ that if they are left unattended and together for like ten minutes, one of them is going to snap and snog the other."

Lily snorts, and James finds the sound of it oddly endearing. "That sounds about right. What do you need my help for then?"

"I need an accomplice," he tells her. "Every good mission involves an accomplice."

"I suppose you're right," she says eventually, before grinning conspiratorially in a way that makes his heart hammer in his chest. "Not to mention that you'd probably be destined for failure without my help."

"Excuse me, I'm insulted." He, perhaps a little too dramatically, clutches his hand to his chest.

She rolls her eyes at that. "This type of mission requires subtlety, which is something that you, quite frankly, have none of."

He tries not to think about what she might be implying there, that she's seen right through just how fucking mad he is for her and wants him to knock it off (which like, he totally would if he _could_ ), and instead continues with his charade of mock offense. "I'm perfectly capable of subtlety, thank you very much."

She cackles. "Sure you are," she replies, patting his arm patronisingly. "Sirius definitely had no idea you were throwing him a surprise birthday party because you definitely didn't hint at it at least a hundred times in conversations."

… Fuck, she has a point.

At least she didn't call him out on his feelings for her.

"Okay, fine, you're right," he relents. "I'm not subtle or sneaky enough to pull this off on my own. So what do you say - are you in?"

"Obviously," she says, before opening the door wider. "Care to come in for some proper mission plotting?"

He follows her into her living room, trying very hard not to focus on the way her hips sway as she walks. Predictably, he does a pretty miserable job of it.

She sits on one side of the grey couch, pulling her legs up underneath her as she leans against the armrest. He takes a seat on the other side, and for some reason he ends up fixating on her socks, which are covered in fluffy orange cats.

"They look like Godric," James says aloud, before his brain really has a chance to stop himself. "The cats on your socks, I mean."

Truly, he doesn't know what the hell possessed him to actually vocalise that thought. She probably thinks he's a massive fucking weirdo. Who pays that much attention to other people's socks? What if she thinks he has some sort of foot fetish?

"You know, I thought the same thing when I bought them." He could very well be imagining it, but he swears her cheeks flush darker than normal. "I mean, you know, just kind of as an afterthought. He's the only fluffy orange cat I know, anyways."

"Yeah," he replies, and his voice comes out kind of strangled.

There's a long moment of silence between the two of them, before Lily seemingly snaps out of whatever she was thinking about. "Right, you're here on a mission," she says clinically. "We're making a plan to get our roommates to finally act on their feelings."

"Operation Get Sirius and Remus Together."

It's only a good plan if it has an official name, obviously.

"That's a slightly wordy title, don't you think?" she muses, tilting her head to the side like she always does when she's thinking really hard about something. After a few moments, she claps her hands together excitedly. "I've got it - Operation Starwolf."

"What?"

"Well," she explains, "Sirius is the name of a star, and Remus comes from Roman legend about a man who was raised by a wolf. Hence, Starwolf." She pauses again, frowning. "Actually, no. Wolfstar. I like Wolfstar better."

He grins at her - god, she's brilliant. "Operation Wolfstar. I love it."

She returns the smile for half a second, before getting back to business again. "Now that the most important detail has been sorted, how do you propose we actually go about this?"

"I figure it's easy," he answers. "We make plans - all four of us - and then you and I both bail at the last second."

Lily mulls that over for a second, before adding, "Valentine's Day."

"What?"

"I'm just thinking," she explains, "that if we run this plan on Valentine's Day and they're just like… completely inundated with all that romantic imagery, the probability that they just snap and own up to their feelings is like, infinitely higher."

She looks down at her lap, suddenly distracted by her fingernails. "Unless you've got a date, I mean, because it won't really work if Sirius knows you already have plans then anyways, so we don't _have_ to do it then, I just - "

"No date," he confirms, almost too quickly. But really, how could he possibly have a date when the only person he's interested in taking out on one is sitting in front of him? "But you're right, Valentine's Day _is_ perfectfor this."

She looks back up at him, grinning. "Wonderful then. We can make plans for the four of us, and then I'll bail first and then you can make up some excuse ten minutes later, and we can leave them to their own devices and, I don't know, hide out somewhere together? Or, er, separately, if you'd prefer."

"We can hide out together, yeah, that's fine," he replies, and immediately wants to smack himself for it.

He has to remind himself, once again, that he's doing this for Sirius. For his best mate's happiness. The fact that he's going to willingly subject himself to the torture of spending at least part of a day dedicated to love and romance spending decidedly non-romantic time with a girl he's kind of in love with is nothing if not a testament to the lengths he's willing to go for his friends.

"Great." There's a look in her eyes that he can't quite place. "Now all that's left to do is come up with the plan for something the four of us could conceivably do together and ensure that they both come along."

He nods. "The mission is a go."

* * *

**_SIRIUS BLACK, THE DAY OF_ **

If Sirius has to watch his best mate longingly pine after their red-headed neighbor for even _one_ more day, he's quite positive he's just going to snap and lock the two of them in a closet until they sort out what is quite clearly a _very_ mutual attraction.

The closet might be a bit extreme, but… perhaps the concept of forcing them to spend an extended period of time alone might be just the thing that makes one of them crack.

It's Valentine's Day, and not only has James been texting Lily Evans nonstop since they woke up this morning, but he's been particularly mopey about it as well.

"You know," Sirius comments dryly, looking up from his textbook to where James is laid across their couch, limbs askew and phone clutched to his heart, "this all could've been avoided if you'd just asked her out on a date like a normal person. Hell, you've still got time to do it now; I'm sure Remus could find other plans in an instant if you two cancelled on him, and I've got a new episode of _Brooklyn 99_ to watch anyways."

Of course, the _ideal_ situation here would be James and Lily going off on a date and Sirius going on a date with Remus himself, but given just how awkward and uncomfortable Remus has gotten in every single situation where Sirius has made some flirtatious comment, Sirius doesn't think that one's in the cards for him.

"Nonsense," James replies immediately, lifting his head up to look at Sirius. "I could _never_ bail on you like that. We have plans, and those are _sacred_."

James is almost always the world's biggest drama queen, but even _this_ is a little over-the-top for him. Sirius decides not to comment on it - James has clearlygone into _peak_ emotional distress, and Sirius has learned the hard way that prodding James too much at this point is like taking a baseball bat to a hornet's nest.

"Whatever you say," is what he settles on replying with, closing his textbook and throwing it into his bag. He's only read about five pages of his fifty-page chapter for sociology, but he'll just wing his way through getting called on like he does every other fucking time he bothers going to lecture. "I'm heading to class, I'll see you tonight at the Hog's Head."

"Yeah, see you there," James says from the couch, before snickering - presumably because Lily has responded to him and he laughs at every single thing that bird sends him, even if it's not actually all that funny.

What a lovesick sod.

Sociology class is, predictably, boring as shit, and Sirius entertains himself by texting Remus on his laptop instead of actually taking notes.

_do you know how to do cpr?_

_yes_

_why?_

_because i'm about to die of boredom in this lecture_

_need someone to bring me back to life_

_fun fact: you can't actually bring anyone back to life with cpr_

_you need an aed or other advanced medical intervention_

_all cpr does is keep oxygen flowing to your brain until then_

_wow ok then_

_in that case_

_need someone to keep oxygen flowing through my dead corpse until someone can shock me back to life_

_i'm literally on the other side of campus_

_shouldn't you get, i don't know, someone in your class to do that_

_wow_

_i can't believe you wouldn't save my life if i was DYING_

_do i mean nothing to you_

_i mean, my life would be a lot quieter_

Sirius makes an audible noise of shock at that, but Binns is too caught up in rambling on about world systems theory to notice it.

_RUDE_

_is it because of the mouth-to-mouth?_

… _what?_

_you've decided you don't want to save my life because you don't want to have to do mouth-to-mouth on me_

_that's literally the least of my problems with this_

_i mean_

_it's not a big deal_

_i just meant that_

_fuck_

_fine, i'll sprint across campus to do cpr on you if you somehow collapse in binn's class_

_happy?_

_delighted_

Sirius really doesn't know _why_ he keeps doing this, keeps making jokes about kissing or anything in a similar vein, when the reception is always the same. Remus gets awkward and stutter-y and changes the subject as quick as humanly possible. And predictably, Sirius' ego takes a hit in the aftermath.

He waits until after class to text Remus again, switching the conversation to something mild and less likely to backfire on him. The entire day goes by in a bit of a blur, and before Sirius knows it, he's calling an Uber to Hog's Head.

The whole affair tonight had been James' idea - since none of the residents of 6A or 6B had Valentine's Day plans, the four of them would all go out to the local pub for drinks and dinner, doing their best to ignore any lovesick couples who also decided to make the pub their spot for the evening.

(Although really, a dingy pub is a pretty shit romantic venue, in Sirius' opinion, unless drunken snogs against the back wall or splitting overly-salted chips is one's idea of romance. He pities the poor couples who make that their date spot.)

Sirius is almost one-hundred percent positive that James has an ulterior motive here - namely, that he wanted an excuse to spend Valentine's Day with Lily but remains too much of a coward to just ask her out properly (or hell, just start snogging her out of the blue), so he proposed a 'friendly get-together' with the four of them as a cop-out.

And Sirius, being the dutiful best friend that he is, said he'd go.

Although he's really kind of regretting that now, because it means he'll probably spend the whole evening watching the two of them flirt and _desperately_ trying to maintain enough self-control over his own tongue that he doesn't say something so horrifically bad to Remus that he gets a drink poured on his head.

Given his comments earlier today (which were over text! where he could have very easily censored himself by backspacing instead of hitting send!), being doused in a pint of ale is looking more and more like the most likely outcome of this evening.

He's early to the pub - a rare occurrence for him, he's never on time for _anything_ \- and so when he gets there, he looks around to scout out a table. Instead of finding an empty table, however, his eyes fall on a sandy-haired man in a red sweater sitting alone in one of the booths.

Remus sees him in the doorway and sends him a small wave. Sirius, dumbfoundedly, waves back.

And like the soft, sad soul that he is, he feels his heart start hammering out a nervous tune in his chest.

When the _fuck_ did the Hog's Head get so warm?

He goes up to the bar first - he needs a drink in his hand to brace himself for this. He's got half a mind to order a couple shots of whiskey to start with, but eventually talks himself out of it and orders a pint instead. While _some_ alcohol is very much needed, there's also the _very_ real risk that he goes _too_ far and ends up sobbing in Remus' lap about how pretty his eyes are.

Once he's got a glass in hand, he walks over to the booth Remus is at and slides into the seat opposite him. He takes off his leather jacket in what he hopes is a relatively smooth manner, tossing it onto the seat next to him. He probably looks mental, wearing nothing but a white T-shirt in February, but the pub might as well be roasting over an open flame for how warm Sirius feels.

" _Fuck_."

It's so soft that Sirius hardly hears it, but it's enough to make him look up.

The man on the other side of the booth is looking determinedly at something happening on the other side of the pub, his cheeks tinged slightly pink, so Sirius decides he must've just imagined it.

He opens his mouth, willing at least _some_ form of a greeting to come out, but before he gets a chance to say anything, both his and Remus' phones ding simultaneously.

He drags his thumb across the screen to unlock it, and is greeted with a new series of texts from Lily in their four-person group chat.

_shit shit shit i'm so sorry_

_petunia messaged me with a 'wedding crisis' and i'm quite positive she's going to have my head if i don't get it sorted out asap_

_gonna have to bail on tonight_

_hope you lads have fun though! xx_

"Oh god, James is going to be _devastated_ ," Sirius says aloud without even thinking about it.

"Let me guess, this was all some elaborate ploy for him to get to spend Valentine's Day with Lily?" Remus replies, looking entirely nonplussed.

"Yep."

Remus snorts at that. "I _told_ Lily that. I _told_ her that he was just being too much of a coward to ask her out properly and that's why he'd invited both of us, but she was _massively_ insistent that that's not what was happening."

"Why are they _both_ this thick-skulled?" Sirius wonders aloud. "They're both clearly _mad_ for each other, how do they _not_ see that?"

He briefly muses on how nice that must be, to have your affections reciprocated by the object of them.

"Dunno," Remus answers with a shrug. "Lily said she practically _threw_ herself at him last week in the library, and… nothing."

"You know, I think James mentioned that. Except in his version of events, he was so distracted by her walking away that he accidentally pulled three books down on top of his head."

Remus barks out a laugh at that, taking a sip of his stout. Sirius has never understood the obsession with dark beers, but Remus is adorably pretentious about them.

This time, it's Remus' turn to get interrupted by text notifications. And this time, they're from James.

_FUCK_

_just got a call from mcgonagall_

_and apparently the team storage room was left unlocked_

_i've got to go do inventory and see if anything got stolen_

_this is going to take at least a couple hours, you lot go ahead and order_

"Geez, I know I'm a bit of a wet blanket sometimes, but this has to be a record for the most people to cancel on me in a single evening," Remus comments, setting his phone down.

"It's kind of uncanny, isn't it?" Sirius muses. "The fact that both Lily _and_ James had emergencies come up within minutes of each other - what a weird coincidence."

Remus' eyes go wide, and he looks like he's had some sort of epiphany. "What if… what if it wasn't a coincidence?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're right, what are the odds?" Remus explains, a fire in his eyes. "It's honestly _more_ likely that the two of them, these same two people who have been pining after each other for literal months, _finally_ got their shit together on Valentine's Day and didn't want to admit to either of us that we were right and they're both oblivious dumbarses, so they made up excuses to bail on us so that they could go snog somewhere."

Oh… _fuck_.

"I think you're onto something there," Sirius replies, taking another sip of his beer and starting to pick out the flaws in James' story. "James is _religious_ about locking up - he's literally made an Uber turn around so that he could check that he'd locked his bedroom before, even though someone would literally have to break down our fucking front door to even get to that point. There's no way in hell he would've forgotten to lock a public storage closet."

"And Lily was _just_ talking last week about how Petunia took her off of wedding emergency duty after she didn't call the florist quick enough because she was in the middle of an exam when Petunia called," Remus adds, laughing abruptly. "Those fucking bastards."

Sirius gets briefly distracted by the sound of Remus' laugh - he really doesn't hear it enough, and it's such a lovely sound. As a result, it takes him a second to get his train of thought back on track. "Or… what if it's not them?"

"What?"

Sirius keeps going with his explanation, the whole thing coming together perfectly the longer he thinks about it. "James hates being wrong, but he's also got the subtlety of a brick, especially when it comes to Lily. If she'd up and snogged him, he'd already have some loved-up picture of the two of them on his Snapchat and Instagram and every other form of social media he could get his hands on. No… I think this is about us."

Remus looks like he's choked on his drink, except his beer has been long since abandoned. "Us?" he asks, his voice cracking slightly.

"James keeps giving me shit about you and me. He keeps implying that we'd make a good couple or something - which is ridiculous, I know," he answers, tacking on that last bit as quickly as he can to prevent Remus from just like, up and bolting from the pub. "So he probably got it set into his brain to set us up on a Valentine's Day date without either of us knowing it, and dragged Lily in as an accomplice."

This time, Remus does actually cough, no longer just looking like he's choked on his drink but actually acting like it as well. "Ridiculous, yeah," he says with a nod, and there's a hint of something in his voice that Sirius can't quite name. "But, er, yeah, that checks out with Lily too."

He picks up his phone again, tapping the screen a few times. "Yeah, Lily's got her location shared with me, and she's at a coffee shop right now, which is neither a good place for handling a wedding emergency _or_ snogging anyone."

Sirius is seriously going to kick James' ass for this.

Or…

"What if we get them right back?"

Remus' face shifts into a devilish sort of half-smile - that, _fuck him_ , is hot as hell - and leans forward on his elbows. "Interesting… tell me more."

"We get revenge by doing the same thing right back at them."

* * *

**_LILY EVANS, A FEW HOURS LATER_ **

Lily never would've gone with James' offer if she knew it would come to this.

(That's a lie, and she knows it. James had shown up at her door with those adorable puppy-dog eyes of his and he probably could've asked her to go scuba diving in the arctic and she would've gone along with it.)

But regardless, the racket going on inside of James and Sirius's flat is something she could've happily gone her whole life without experiencing.

"Well shit," James says, carding his hand through his hair and staring dumbfoundedly at his own door. "I was hoping Operation Wolfstar would be a success, but I didn't expect it to be _this much_ of a success."

"I feel like I shouldn't be surprised that Sirius is that loud, and yet," she replies dryly. The effect is somewhat ruined by another really loud moan coming from the flat.

Honestly, it's like they're shagging _against_ the door with how loudly the noise is carrying into the hallway right now.

"At least this means I didn't ruin the plan by making my excuse too quickly after yours?" James says weakly. She'd reprimanded him for not waiting the full ten minutes like they'd planned earlier tonight, convinced that they'd sent their messages too close together to be realistic.

"It appears they were none the wiser," Lily admits, before turning to James, who she's realising is more or less locked out of his own flat. "Do you want to come back to mine for a bit? You know, at least until… _this_ is done?"

"I - er - yeah, sure," James manages.

Honestly, whenever she's thought about inviting a bloke to come back to her place on Valentine's Day, she's had much… _different_ intentions in mind than shielding him from the sounds of his roommate having sex.

Especially if said bloke is James.

But their coffee not-date while waiting out their master plan had been nothing but platonic and friendly, so it doesn't look like that's in the cards for her tonight.

I mean, hell, the whole place had been _covered_ in pink hearts and flowers - for fuck's sake, even their _lattes_ had hearts in the foam - which would've made it the _perfect_ place for a bloke to tell her that he's got feelings for her.

And fuck, she's been plenty obvious about her own feelings thus far, so if there was ever a chance for him to admit that he's secretly been pining after for just as long as she's been pining after him (like Remus has adamantly insisted is the case), it would've been tonight.

And yet… nada. He hadn't even so much as held her hand on the way home, and she'd purposefully bumped her hand into his at _least_ five times.

She unlocks her front door, walking into the little flat. "Do you want something?" she asks, distracting herself. "Tea, coffee?"

"I think caffeine is probably a dangerous idea this late," he replies, falling onto her sofa like he belongs there.

She immediately thinks of something else. "I've got a better idea," she tells him, walking into the kitchen and pulling a bottle out of the cabinets. She's been saving this bottle - which was notably more expensive than the boxed wine she usually subsists off of - for a special occasion, but fuck it, trying to pretend like she doesn't fancy the pants off of the man who's hanging out in her apartment on Valentine's Day feels like a damn good excuse for nice wine.

She grabs two glasses off the shelf, giving both of them a healthy-sized pour of cabernet, before carrying them out into the living room.

"Maybe if we drink enough, we can permanently repress the sound of our roommates having sex with each other," she says, presenting James with a glass.

"Already repressed, honestly," he replies, but takes the glass from her and takes a big gulp of it anyways.

She settles onto the couch next to him, making the intentional choice to sit closer to him on the couch than would probably otherwise be warranted. She can't help it that he's got a fucking magnetic hold on her, making her want nothing more than to be as close to him as humanly possible.

She leans forward to grab a chocolate from the heart-shaped box on the coffee table, hoping he'll think _that's_ why she chose to sit where he did.

"Where'd you manage to get that?" James asks, an air of nonchalance to his voice that sounds kind of faked. "You have some sort of secret admirer I don't know about, Evans?"

She bites her tongue to stop herself from laughing out loud. "God, I _wish_."

Wishes the secret admirer was _him_ , that is.

"But no," she tells him, "it was on sale at Tesco's and Remus and I figured a giant chocolate heart in the middle of our living room would make us feel less pathetic for being alone on Valentine's Day. Although, I suppose I'm the only one who's alone at this point…"

"Way to acknowledge a bloke's existence," James jokes, his free hand pushing his glasses back up his nose. "I mean, not that, er, I'm a _date_ , which is what you were implying I guess, but, er, yeah, I'm here."

He blinks a few times, and Lily thinks she may have well and truly broken James Potter.

And weirdly enough, that kind of sends a jolt of hope through her? She can't explain it, but she can't help but wonder if maybe things aren't _completely_ hopeless, based on his reaction just now. The mere mention of a date wouldn't make him go completely catatonic if he felt _nothing_ for her, would it?

"So what do you want to do?" she asks him, grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch. "Between Remus and I, we've pretty much got all the streaming services they've got, if watching something sounds good?"

James grins, suddenly back to himself again. "We could really embrace the sad Valentine's Day aesthetic, and turn on some shitty rom-com while we polish off a full bottle of wine," he suggests, not even flinching when Lily shakes out the blanket and it lands partially on him.

She mimics his smile right back at him. "Sounds perfect."

She picks up the remote, scrolling aimlessly through Netflix until they find the romantic comedies. James mockingly reads a bunch of the summaries, making Lily almost spit out her wine on more than one occasion.

Eventually, they settle on watching _How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days_. Although really, it's not so much of a movie-watching as it is both Lily _and_ James getting progressively more annoyed with the movie and taking turns airing their grievances.

"Honestly, who the fuck does that?" Lily rants, gesturing wildly at the screen as the credits start to roll. "Truly, if a guy shows up and pays off my fucking taxi that I was taking to a goddamn _job interview_ and tells the driver to take my shit back home, I'd kick his ass, not kiss him."

"And he's so dismissive of it too!" James responds, equally as riled up. The empty bottle of wine on the table in front of them probably has something to do with that. "Like, you don't work in writing, how the fuck do you know where Andie can and can't do the type of writing she wants to? You move _your_ ass to DC if you're so in love with her, asshole."

Lily's not sure who initiated it or when it happened, but the two of them are decidedly _much_ closer than they were when the movie started. Her thigh is pressed against his leg underneath the blanket, and one of his arms is resting along the back of the couch behind her, his hand mere inches from her shoulder.

"God, I really remembered this movie as being so fucking romantic," Lily says, leaning back further so that she's basically tucked up against him. "It really didn't hold up, did it?"

James snorts. "No, not really."

He's so warm and lovely and smells _so_ fucking good that she's got half a mind to just fall asleep here. She'd probably wake up with a massive crick in her neck from sleeping sitting up, but honestly, it'd be worth it?

And she really _would_ do it, except she feels James slowly extract his arm from behind her and the warm presence of his body next to hers suddenly goes cold.

"I don't want to keep you from going to bed," he says, grabbing the wine glasses off the table and taking them into the kitchen. "It should be safe for me to go back to my own flat now anyways."

She pushes the blanket off her own lap, standing up and trying not to wobble too much as she does so. "Yeah, I think you're probably in the clear," she agrees, trying to mask the disappointment in her tone.

"Thanks for letting me crash here for a little bit," he says, running a hand through his hair with one hand as he opens the front door with the other.

"It wasn't a problem at all," she tells him, and means it. It was the exact _opposite_ of a problem, really. The only thing that would make it _less_ of a problem is if he let go of that door handle and took it upon himself to push her against the wall and snog the living daylights out of her.

But instead he just shoots her another one of those cheeky grins that sets butterflies loose in her stomach, and walks out.

Disappointment settles in her stomach, thick and heavy like all the wine and chocolate in her system. She'd known, objectively, that inviting James over to her place wasn't going to lead to anything, but that logic hadn't done much to quash the hopeful thoughts.

For fuck's sake, they were practically cuddling while watching a rom-com, how could she _not_ get a little wishful out of that?

She walks back into her bedroom, opening up her pyjama drawer and rooting around in it. She stumbles upon the black lace by accident, but the moment her fingers brush against it, she's convinced it's fate.

The lacy teddy and shorts don't get a lot of wear - she tends to prefer oversized T-shirts as her go-to sleep attire - but dammit, she deserves to feel like a hot piece of ass tonight.

James Potter and his stupidly messy hair and his stupidly adorable face and his stupidly fit body don't know what they're missing.

She takes the black set into the bathroom with her, changing into it and setting herself upon the task of taking her makeup off. As soon as she's finished patting moisturiser into her skin, she hears a knock at the front door.

A quick glance through the peephole tells her that it's James on the other side, typing furiously on his phone.

She opens the door, and without looking up, he explains, "They closed the fucking security latch, so I can't get in to the fucking flat. And neither of them are answering their fucking phones, so can I - "

He picks that exact moment to look up from his phone, and whatever else he was going to say instantly dies on his lips. His eyes go wide, and for a moment he rather strikingly resembles a deer in headlights.

"I - _fucking hell_ \- I - " he stammers, decidedly looking anywhere but at her, his cheeks flushing a deep pink.

"So you need a place to crash for the night," she finishes, momentarily reveling in the fact that she has apparently managed to strike him completely speechless.

This hadn't been the intended effect of waltzing around her apartment in black lacy lingerie, but by god, it might be better.

"Er, yeah, if that's alright."

She grins, not that James is looking at her to even see it. "Well considering _my_ roommate is the reason you're in this particular predicament, it's really only fair that I let you stay here as repayment."

"Thanks," he says, finally looking her in the eye again. "You're a lifesaver."

"Well, I could hardly let you sleep in the hallway, now could I?" She's blatantly flirting with him at this point, because fuck it, why not.

"That _would_ be sort of a dick move, yeah," he answers, his face finally going back to its normal colour. "But seriously, thank you. I'll crash on your couch or in Remus' room and be out of your hair before you even wake up in the morning."

"Remus' room is locked," she tells him, stepping back from the doorway so that he can come inside. "And you're a guest, I'm not letting you sleep on the couch. That thing's barely as long as I am, there's no way you'd fit comfortably. I've got a perfectly suitable double bed."

He shakes his head. "Evans, I'm not making you sleep on the couch in your own flat."

"I never said I was sleeping on the couch."

He finally gets the message, and his left hand instantly shoots up to bury itself in his hair. "Are you okay with that?"

She turns around and starts walking to the bedroom. "I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't okay with it."

She swings her hips a little when she walks - like she always does whenever she knows James is behind her - and is pleased when she turns around at the doorway to discover that it had the intended effect. He's looking her way, slightly dazed.

"I've got a spare toothbrush in the bathroom that I can grab for you," she says. "Unfortunately I've not got much to offer by the way of pyjamas, so you'll have to work that one out for yourself."

" 'Sfine," he replies, having finally found his voice again. "I usually just sleep in my boxers anyways. But, er, thanks for the toothbrush."

"No problem." She goes into the bathroom, digs out the spare toothbrush in the bottom drawer, and comes back out to present it to him.

While he's in the bathroom brushing his teeth, Lily scans her bedroom, making sure that nothing potentially embarrassing is left sitting out in the open.

Much to her delight, the whole place is actually almost spotless. She's got a hoodie on the back of her desk chair that she borrowed from James a few weeks ago and has 'forgotten' to return to him ever since, but other than that, which she throws into her closet, the whole place is safe. Honestly, thank _god_ she'd gone on a cleaning rampage earlier this week.

The bathroom door opens, and Lily turns in the direction of the noise. And while she's technically had advance preparation that James sleeps in just his boxers, she hadn't prepared for him to be walking around in just his boxers right _now_.

They're covered in cartoon hearts - because of _course_ he's the type of bloke to wear holiday-themed boxers, she doesn't know why she's even slightly surprised - and they're low enough on his hips that she can see the trail of dark hair on his lower abdomen.

And that's not even to mention the fact that he's bloody _shirtless_ , and fuck if she isn't already fantasising about what it'd be like to slowly drag her hands all over his toned chest and arms, committing every flat plane and sharp edge and curve of his skin to memory.

"Looking for something?" James says, and there's just a hint of humour in his voice as she snaps her head up to look him in the face.

The smirk on his face suggests that he _definitely_ knows she was checking him out.

"I - I should go brush my teeth." She very quickly averts her eyes and scurries into the bathroom behind him, hoping that he doesn't notice the violent flush creeping up her neck.

It's probably only fitting that the universe would punish her for messing with James by causing her to make a fool of herself as well.

But _fuck_ he's fit.

She finishes brushing her teeth, takes a couple steadying breaths, and walks back into the bedroom. James is sitting on the edge of the bed, typing away on his phone.

"There are blankets there for a reason, you know," she jokes, walking to her side of the bed. She's honestly very glad he picked the right side of the bed - she never would've _told_ him he needed to move to the other side, but she's very much partial to the left side of her bed.

"I know," he replies, mimicking her tone back at her. "I was getting there."

He sets his phone down on the table and actually does make to get under her lilac comforter, and Lily reaches up to turn her overhead light off.

"You good?" she asks, her hand hovering on the switch. "Can I turn the lights off?"

"Yep, you're good."

She flips the switch, and the whole room goes almost entirely black - the only light is what's leaking through the blinds from the street outside. She gets into bed on her side gingerly, careful to stay on her own side as she does so. She's not really used to sharing a bed with anyone, and especially not _this_ bed - she hasn't had a single bloke over since they moved in, which was when she bought the bed to begin with.

Coincidentally, the very reason she hasn't had another bloke over is the person who's currently in the bed with her.

There's a long moment of silence, but somehow, Lily can tell that James hasn't actually started trying to fall asleep yet. So she breaks the tension, rolling over on her side to face him. Sure enough, he's looking up at the ceiling, eyes still wide open.

"James?"

He turns to face her.

"Tonight was really nice." She feels something coil in the pit of her stomach. "I mean, I'm sorry that you got locked out of your own place in the process, but I just… I really liked spending time with you."

He rolls over to face her, and suddenly they're just a few inches apart. Lily wonders if he can hear the way her breath catches in her throat when she looks into his hazel eyes. She's not sure she's ever seen him without his glasses on before.

"Me too," he replies, his voice barely above a whisper. "Even if it _was_ a pity date."

She scrunches her eyebrows together at that. "A pity date?"

"Well, I mean, it wasn't really a date to begin with, I suppose. But yeah, you could've spent your Valentine's Day on some hot date, and instead you hung out with me all night so that we could pull off a ruse to get our roommates together."

It hits her, suddenly and forcefully and out of nowhere, that _fuck_ , Remus was right. Really, she's been piecing it together all night, the fact that James fancies her and is doing an increasingly shit job of hiding it, but for some reason, right now, looking into eyes that are inches from her own as he suggests that she somehow _settled_ for him, is when it finally all comes together.

"I'm the one who _proposed_ Valentine's Day as the day to do this, if you remember correctly," she points out. "And this definitely wasn't a pity date. There's no one else I would've rather spent Valentine's Day with."

"There wasn't?" Even in the barely-there light, she can see the dumbfounded look on his face.

She shakes her head, feeling a sudden rush of courage come on as she answers him. "Nope. Although ideally, it would've ended a little differently."

"How?"

She's completely overcome by that boldness and leans in closer to him, so that their foreheads are practically touching. "Like this," she says softly, mere millimeters from his lips.

And then she closes that last little space and kisses him. It's just a soft, gentle press of her lips to his, and then she pulls back.

It takes exactly six seconds for James to react. (She counts.)

"Lily?" he squeaks.

"Mmhmm?"

"Am I asleep right now?"

She hums. "Depends. If you were, would this be a dream or a nightmare?"

"Dream," he answers immediately, fervently. "God, _definitely_ a dream."

"Then you are most definitely, very much awake," she replies, a grin splitting across her face. "And I am very much telling you, in a very much not-a-dream way, that I've wanted to do that for _months_."

"You have?"

"Yes," she nods, "and I thought I'd been _blatantly_ obvious about that and that you'd decided to ignore it because you didn't feel the same way, but I'm starting to think that maybe you've _actually_ just been a completelyoblivious idiot the entire time."

He laughs loudly at that, bursting the quiet little bubble between them. "You're saying _you_ made it obvious? Are you seriously saying you _haven't_ noticed just how many times I've made a complete fool of myself talking to you because I fancy you something awful and my brain literally just forgets how to operate normally whenever you're around?"

She couldn't fight off the grin on her face even if she wanted to. "I think we can both admit we've been a bit thick-skulled and move on with things."

There's a sparkle in his eyes that's visible even in the dark. "Move on with things as in…?"

"I've done a lot of putting the pieces together tonight," she replies, teasing him. "I think you can get this one."

He picks up on _that_ hint with remarkable ease, and it's all of fifteen seconds until he's pulling her on top of him and snogging her like his very life depends on it.

The black lacy lingerie and heart-print boxers don't last much longer.

* * *

**_REMUS LUPIN, A FEW HOURS EARLIER_ **

It takes less than five minutes from when Lily and James arrived at the door to when they both agree to go to Remus and Lily's flat. And as soon as they hear the door across the hallway shut, the charade is off, and Sirius' very loud fake-moaning comes to a sudden stop.

There's an awkward moment of silence that Remus feels obliged to fill somehow.

"Those were some, ah, convincing sex noises."

With literally _anything_ but that - Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with him?

Sirius seems equally as befuddled by the words that just came out of Remus' mouth. "Er, thank you?"

"I just - I think our plan worked well, is all," Remus adds awkwardly, desperately trying to backtrack his own stupidity. Really, he's been doing _so_ good tonight, hasn't made a complete prat of himself _once_ , and then he goes and says that.

Sirius relaxes at that. "Yeah, I think it did."

They're both sitting on the floor by the door - they'd come to the conclusion that it'd be best if it sounded like they hadn't even made it into the bedroom, because that way, no portion of the apartment would be safe for James to come into. He'd be forced to go back to Lily's place with her.

They'd also shut the security latch for good measure. Although as it turned out, they didn't even need it.

"So, what do we do now?" Remus asks, looking around James and Sirius' flat. The first part of their plan seemed so brilliant - and it still _is_ , because it's working - but now Remus isn't really sure what comes next.

"Didn't think that far," Sirius admits, shrugging.

It's silent for a few moments, until Remus' stomach growls loudly.

"Shit, we completely forgot about dinner, didn't we?" Sirius asks, laughing. "Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but James is the only real cook in this house. I'm only good for breakfast food and frozen pizzas."

Now that Remus thinks about it, every time he and Lily have come over here for dinner, James has been the one cooking.

"You know, frozen pizza happens to be one of my favourites," Remus replies. It's a lie, but it's worth it when Sirius shoots a grin in his direction.

"Well, in that case, I've got you covered." Sirius jumps up from his place on the floor, reaching down to take Remus' hand and pull him up as well.

Remus, completely unprepared for the sudden contact, doesn't really know what to do with the fact that Sirius' hand is now clasped with his own. They're both standing now, so at what point is he supposed to let go? How do these things typically work? He should know the answer to that, and just inherently understand the socially appropriate amount of time to hold someone's hand after they pull you up, and yet.

It's honestly kind of pathetic that he gets turned into a barely functioning pile of goo whenever Sirius does something as simple as taking off his leather jacket in a crowded pub or pulling him up from the floor.

Shit, he's held on too long.

He quickly drops Sirius' hand, rubbing his palms on his jeans. "Thanks," he mutters.

Sirius doesn't say anything as he walks into the kitchen, and Remus briefly wonders if he's done something wrong.

After a moment, he realises that his hunger outweighs any sense of shame, and follows Sirius into the kitchen. He's already got the oven warming up and pizza set on the top of the stove, and he's rooting around in the fridge for something.

"Want something to drink?" Sirius asks, his voice muffled as he talks into the appliance. "We've got beer - none of the dark stuff, sorry - a half-drank bottle of white wine, and, uhh, Jager."

"Sounds like quite a collection," Remus retorts dryly. It's honestly right on brand for he and James to have the world's shittiest liquor cabinet. "I'll have a beer, so long as it isn't one of those pretentious-as-fuck IPAs."

"Nah, the IPAs are James', and he'd probably kick my ass for giving one of those away anyways." Sirius rights himself, holding a bottle of beer that Remus doesn't immediately recognise.

They hang out in the kitchen and drink while the oven heats up, and Remus laughs when Sirius burns his finger putting the pizza in.

"I can't believe you'd laugh at my pain," Sirius tells him, an obvious flair of drama to his tone as he takes a seat in the barstool next to Remus.

"I'm sorry, next time I'll be sure to call an ambulance right away."

"Good," he nods. "That's the only fitting thing to do in this situation, really."

Remus fucking _adores_ bantering with Sirius like this. It's pretty common that their conversations descend into this - Remus being aggressively sarcastic and Sirius playing along perfectly - and god if it doesn't just make his day.

At least, until Sirius makes a joking sexual comment that reminds Remus of his very real romantic feelings and he immediately forgets how to speak in full sentences, much less sentences that have any wit attached.

Luckily for him, Sirius doesn't descend into that territory this time.

They polish off the entire pizza in fifteen minutes flat, which once again leaves them with the dilemma of what the fuck to do with their time.

"I've got it!" Sirius says, jumping up from his chair excitedly. Were it not for the fact that Sirius had listed out the contents of their liquor cabinet not too long ago, Remus would think Sirius is about to propose a drinking game. That's usually the type of thing he gets this excited about anyways.

A drinking game is probably a dangerous idea anyways - Remus imagines it'd probably end with him drunkenly crying into Sirius' shoulder about how soft his hair looks, or something equally as embarrassing and incriminating.

Instead of bearing a bottle of alcohol, Sirius returns bearing a board game.

Remus looks at it skeptically. "Weren't you _just_ texting me earlier today about the fact that corporate greed is the root of like, all of society's problems?"

Sirius shrugs. "Capitalism can get fucked, but I'll still kick your ass at Monopoly."

"Only if I get to be the boot."

"I exclusively play as the Scottie dog, so you have yourself a deal," Sirius replies, setting the board game on the counter and getting it set up.

The whole process takes well over an hour, and they've both finished off three beers and are yawning intermittently by the time that Remus lands on Piccadilly and regrettably hands over the last of his fake money to Sirius.

"Thank _god_ ," Sirius says, barely even celebrating his own victory amidst his exhaustion. "I always forget how time-consuming that game is. It's nearly midnight."

"Yeah, shit, I should head - " he pauses, as he comes to a startling realisation. "Fuck, I can't go home tonight."

Sirius' eyes go wide. "Shit, you're right."

They'd come to the conclusion, while concocting this plan in the first place, that they weren't going to fuck it up like Lily and James did, and that included making them believe the set-up wasn't actually a set-up.

Therefore, Remus would be expected to stay the night with Sirius, as one normally does when they go home with someone.

"If you don't mind cat hair everywhere, you could probably sleep in James' bed, I honestly doubt he'd notice," Sirius suggests, before rethinking that. "Wait shit, no you can't, he always locks his stupid bedroom door."

Despite his words, Sirius still jumps up from his seat and checks the door to his roommates' room, jiggling the handle a few times. "Honestly, why the fuck do all these rooms have locks on the bedrooms too? It's _so_ fucking pointless, my god."

"I'm fine with sleeping on the couch," Remus tells him. Honestly, his and James' couch is probably nicer than his actual mattress.

"Like hell you are," Sirius replies. "I dragged you into this shit, it'd be _real_ fucked-up for me to force you to sleep on the couch as a result. You can have my bed, I'll sleep out here."

"I'm not kicking you out of your own bed," Remus argues back. "Besides, I agreed to this plan, I'm just as much at fault as you are."

Sirius crosses his arms across his chest, and Remus' attention is immediately drawn to the way his biceps pull the sleeves of his T-shirt taut. "So if neither of us are sleeping on the couch, what are we doing?"

Remus blinks, looking back up at Sirius' face. "We can - we can share the bed."

They can share a bed, they'll be just fine. They're adults, and they can easily share a space that's designed for two people anyways without making it weird.

"And you're okay with that?"

"Yeah, it's fine," Remus replies, nodding. "It's just one night, what's the worst that could happen?"

Well, other than the fact that he might wake up tomorrow morning wrapped around Sirius like a koala and have to explain _why_ he's cuddling someone who's supposed to be his super-platonic friend.

"Okay." Sirius runs a hand through his hair. "Do you need anything? Pyjamas or anything?"

Remus assesses what he's currently wearing. "A T-shirt and a toothbrush would be ideal."

Sirius immediately walks into the kitchen, which seems like a weird path given that neither of the things Remus just asked for are things one would find in a kitchen. But oddly enough, Sirius goes under the kitchen sink and retrieves a toothbrush, still in its original packaging.

Remus opens his mouth to ask why the hell he's got a toothbrush down there, but Sirius is explaining before he even has to. "James. Don't ask me why, because I don't know, but he decided to buy a fuck ton of toiletries in bulk one day, and didn't have room for them in his own bathroom."

He doesn't understand James' logic in the slightest, but he's grateful for it nonetheless, if only because it got him something to get the gross beer-and-frozen-pizza taste out of his mouth.

Sirius goes into his bedroom next, and Remus follows slowly. Walking into Sirius' bedroom feels like entering foreign territory, for some reason.

The bedroom is, remarkably, a very accurate reflection of Sirius himself. The whole thing is a bit of a mess, but it's organised chaos. The walls are covered with motorcycle posters and a massive pride flag that Remus knows for a fact he originally bought to hang in his childhood home to piss his mother off, and there's a large puppy calendar hanging over his desk.

"This work?" Remus barely has time to react before a shirt is being flung at him. He unfurls it, noticing the Green Day logo on the front of it. He's pretty sure he's seen Sirius wearing this around campus before.

"Perfect."

He goes into the bathroom, stripping down to his boxers, and swapping his sweater for Sirius' shirt. He's taller than Sirius, but Sirius is also broader, so it all balances out and the shirt fits just fine.

When he walks out, Sirius has already stripped down to nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs.

And good god, it takes more effort than it should to stop himself from physically _drooling_.

"Does it, er, matter what side of the bed?" Remus asks, trying to distract himself from the very intrusive ideas currently bombarding his thoughts, like what every inch of Sirius' exposed skin would taste like against his lips.

"Er, left?" Sirius replies. "Doesn't really matter to me, honestly. That shirt looks good on you, by the way. I might just have to let you keep it."

Remus scoffs at that. "Isn't this one of your favourite shirts? Besides, I only know like two Green Day songs, and one of them is 'Wake Me Up When September Ends.' I don't think I'm qualified to wear one of their tour shirts in public."

"Or I'll just inundate you with their music until you know every word of every song by heart," Sirius jokes, crawling into bed.

Remus gets in on the other side, laying on his side facing away from Sirius. It's safer this way; by looking out at the room and not at the bed he's in, he can avoid the reality of the fact that the man he's been dreaming about for months now is _so_ close yet so far away.

The light flips off, and the whole room is covered in a shroud of darkness.

"Goodnight, Sirius," Remus says, feeling like he should probably address the silence lingering in the air _somehow_.

At least this time, he's managed to fill the quiet without making a complete idiot of himself in the process.

"Goodnight, Remus."

And though he's still kind of on edge, the sheer exhaustion wins out, and Remus falls asleep almost instantly, sinking into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

Remus rarely sleeps through the night. Usually, he tosses and turns and wakes up for like an hour in the middle of the night, for no other reason than that his brain just refuses to let him fall back asleep. So when he opens his eyes and realises there's daylight streaming into the room, his first thought is to be completely shocked at the fact that he's actually managed a restful night's sleep.

His second thought is that there's a warm body wrapped around his own.

Or, more accurately, said warm body is _intertwined_ with his own, legs linked together under the covers and an arm around his waist, and his head is tucked into someone's bare chest.

… Fuck. This is almost _exactly_ what he'd been worried would happen.

How the hell is he meant to get out of this without waking Sirius up? Given _just_ how many different ways the two of them are linked together, Remus is pretty sure that's an impossible endeavour.

And in that case, how the hell is he meant to look Sirius in the eye when he wakes up?

But one thing outweighs the panic and dread clamouring around in his head, and that's the fact that cuddling with Sirius feels _so damn natural_ that he can't even think about trying to move right now. Truly, he's convinced that two people's bodies were never as perfectly fit to be wrapped around each other as theirs are right now.

(His sappy-about-Sirius-Black levels are at an all-time high.)

Sirius hums - a contented sort of sound - and Remus feels the vibrations of it resonate through his chest. Remus freezes, convinced that Sirius is waking up and about to jump out of bed and away from Remus at any second, but nothing comes of it. He stays exactly where he is.

He chances a look upwards at Sirius' face - partially out of some sort of uncontrollable curiosity as to what Sirius looks like when he's sleeping - and is startled to see a pair of grey eyes looking down at him with an unbelievably soft expression.

If Remus didn't know any better, he'd say that look belongs to someone who's _incredibly_ besotted.

But the moment - and the expression - fade as soon as their eyes meet. The soft look is replaced by one of mild panic, and Remus instantly starts trying to untangle himself from Sirius.

"Sorry," Remus says, his voice still rough from sleep. "I tend to get cuddly when I sleep."

That's a blatant lie - Remus has shared a bed with another person platonically on numerous occasions before, and never once has he woke up literally wrapped around them.

Sirius just shrugs, sitting up groggily. " 'S all good. I'll never complain about waking up with a pretty boy in my arms."

It's too damn early for Remus' stomach to be doing fucking somersaults like this.

He tries to brush it off, like he usually does with Sirius' comments like that, because he makes them at everyone - they don't mean anything special. But he still can't get that soft look on Sirius' face out of his head - that one's probably been branded into his head for perpetuity.

Could it mean…?

Sirius picks up his phone and barks with laughter, which pulls Remus out of his own head.

"I've got like twenty unread messages from James," Sirius explains, holding his phone out for Remus to see.

The screen is indeed a constant stream of grey text bubbles.

_sirius_

_what the fuck_

_unlock the fucking door_

_you royal fucking arse_

_Missed FaceTime Audio call (2)_

_fuck you guys are already asleep aren't you_

_fuckkkkkk_

_fuck fuck fuck_

_i've set a record for fucks in this series of texts haven't i_

_but it's warranted now_

_i'm so fucked_

_i came back to lily's place bc i'm locked out and she's wearing this black lace thing and FUCK_

_i'm SO fucked_

_and it's all your fault_

_like, congrats on sorting your shit out with remus and all_

_but also fuck you_

Remus is already laughing before he finishes the stream of texts. "I think this probably means we can call this mission a success?"

"Well, considering it sounds like Lily bloody seduced him in the end, I think so."

Sirius types back a response - something along the lines of _not sorry, glad you two had fun last night ;)_ and gets up out of bed abruptly. "You want breakfast? As promised yesterday, it's the one thing I'm not rubbish at cooking."

"Er, sure."

He's trying _real_ hard not to imagine that this is a _real_ morning-after with someone he's _really_ hooked up with, because it sure is starting to feel like one.

Sirius throws a T-shirt and joggers on - which, in all honesty, is probably very good for Remus' sanity - and leaves the room.

By the time Remus has gotten up, checked his phone (which _also_ had two missed calls from James), and gone to the bathroom, Sirius is smack dab in the middle of making eggs and bacon, with two cups of coffee sitting on the counter, steam swirling up out of the mugs.

"The black one's yours - one packet of sugar, no milk."

He's briefly shocked that Sirius knows his coffee order - when was the last time they even had coffee together? - and just opens and closes his mouth like a fish a few times before formulating a, "Thanks."

He sits down in one of the barstools, in front of the Monopoly game left from the night before, and contents himself to just watch Sirius cook while he gingerly sips at his own coffee.

"James texted back," Sirius says casually, while loading up the plates. "Go check his Snapchat."

Remus does as he's told, and sure enough, there's a video on his story of James and Lily, presumably from this morning, where both he and Lily have the heart filter on their faces as they grin at the camera, before James turns to kiss her on the cheek. The caption underneath reads, _is it too late to call her my valentine?_

"You weren't wrong that James wouldn't waste any time," he tells Sirius, setting his phone back down.

When the other man comes over, brandishing two plates loaded with eggs, bacon, and toast that he sets on the counter, shoving the Monopoly board out of the way, Remus has sat there pondering things for just long enough that he's determined that there is another, majorly significant flaw in their plan.

"Sirius?"

"Hm?"

"What are we going to tell them? James and Lily, I mean."

He looks confused at that. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we, er," Remus begins, stumbling over his words a bit, "we kind of made it seem like we got together last night, and if we _don't_ want them thinking that we played them back the same way they did to us, we… er, we kind of have to deal with that somehow."

Sirius falls into his chair with none of the dramatic flair he usually has. "Oh."

"Yeah."

He seems to think on that for a while, staring at his plate, before turning to Remus with an uncertain look. "We could, er, fake being together for a little bit?"

That's certainly an option, but part of it doesn't really sit right with Remus. Namely, the 'fake' part. He's not sure how effectively he could _fake_ being in a relationship with Sirius without it absolutely destroying him.

He takes another sip of his coffee, willing it to give him some sort of previously unearthed confidence.

Fuck, he's really going to do this, isn't he? But he _can't_ have imagined the look in Sirius' eyes this morning though. Even his wildest stretches of the imagination can't explain that away, can't explain away the depth of affection there. He takes a deep breath, and his response comes out in a rush. "What if it wasn't fake?"

Sirius just blinks at him - Remus isn't sure if he's still processing what he just said, or if he just genuinely couldn't make out Remus' words. "What?"

"I - look," Remus begins, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, "I kind of… fancy you. A lot. And I don't really want to fake being together with you, because I'd much rather _actually_ be together with you."

"What?" Sirius repeats, beginning to sound a bit like a broken record.

"And maybe I totally misread the situation, but I'm starting to think that… that maybe there's a chance you feel the same way?" Remus picks up his mug again, clutching it in his hands to stop them from fidgeting. "I just - last night and this morning, and I could be _completely_ wrong, but - "

"You're not," Sirius interrupts. "I've been fucking head over heels for you since the day you moved in and I found you on the fourth floor stairwell kicking your coffee table and calling it a 'shitting tonne of shit-bricks.' "

Now it's Remus' turn to be stunned into one-word responses. "Oh."

And then, "Really? _That_ was the moment?"

Sirius just shrugs. "You're cute when you're flustered."

"You do realise I'm flustered, like, all the time, right?"

"And you're cute all the time," he replies resolutely. "Although really, I can't believe you're _just_ now picking up on this - I've been flirting with you since the day we met."

"You flirt with everyone though!" Remus defends, setting his mug down on the counter with a thud.

Sirius cocks his head at that. "Do I, though?"

"You make those comments to James all the time."

He snorts. "Yeah, well, James is practically my brother. We say stupid shit to each other all the time. But anyone else though? It's only ever been you."

The more Remus thinks about it, he actually can't remember a single time Sirius has been flirty with Lily, or with any of their other university friends.

It's… it's just been him.

"Shit."

Sirius laughs at that, and it's happy and full-bodied and makes Remus feel warm inside in all the best ways. "So we're doing this for real then?"

Remus nods, more sure of this than he's been of anything else all morning. "Yeah."

"In that case…" Sirius stands up from his seat and moves towards Remus, stepping into the space between his legs, so close that Remus has to turn his head upwards to see Sirius' face from where he's sitting.

And then Sirius' lips are on his own, and it's nothing short of fucking _brilliant_. He tastes like coffee, and Remus is delighted to discover, as he wraps his arms around Sirius' neck and pulls him closer, that his hair is _exactly_ as soft as he'd imagined it would be. He finds out that Sirius makes these little noises of pleasure into the kiss every time Remus tugs on it a little bit, and Remus quickly decides that this is quite possibly the best discovery he's ever made.

Sirius' fingers grip onto Remus' shirt - the one that's technically _his_ \- like it's the only thing keeping him grounded, and Remus feels the exact same way. He feels like he's flying, floating through the breeze on nothing but pure joy and bliss.

After what could've been thirty seconds or fifteen minutes, Sirius pulls back. They're both breathing hard, hearts hammering out a frantic beat in perfect time, and Sirius' face splits into a blindingly bright grin.

"Just think," he says breathlessly, eyes roaming Remus' face like he's trying to commit this moment to memory, "we could've been doing that for _months_."

Remus smirks. "Looks like we've got a lot of lost time to make up for."

A few hours later, back in Sirius' bed all over again but this time under very different circumstances, Sirius is absentmindedly running his hands through Remus' hair while Remus drags his fingers in abstract patterns across Sirius' skin. "As much as I hate admitting that James was right about _anything_ ," Sirius says, "I guess his attempts at meddling worked after all."

Remus snorts. "I think the moral of the story here is that we _all_ needed outside intervention. We're suchfucking pathetic sods."

"That's okay," Sirius replies. "I happen to like pathetic sods."

Remus grins, looking Sirius in the eyes. "Is is too late to call you my valentine?"

Sirius laughs at the clear callback to James' caption. "Never too late," he answers resolutely, before leaning down to kiss him once more.


	2. the shamelessly smutty outtake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lol i accidentally took this one-shot down a smutty turn and then cut it bc it didn’t fit right in the actual fic. but i still wanted to finish it, so here we are (y’all i’m not kidding all the plot was in the last chapter, this one has none, you have been warned)

“James?”

He turns to face her.

“Tonight was really nice.” She feels something coil in the pit of her stomach. “I mean, I’m sorry that you got locked out of your own place in the process, but I just… I really liked spending time with you.”

He rolls over to face her, and suddenly they’re just a few inches apart. Lily wonders if he can hear the way her breath catches in her throat when she looks into his hazel eyes. She’s not sure she’s ever seen him without his glasses on before.

“Me too,” he replies, his voice barely above a whisper. “Even if it _was_ a pity date.”

She scrunches her eyebrows together at that. “A pity date?”

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t really a date to begin with, I suppose. But yeah, you could’ve spent your Valentine’s Day on some hot date, and instead you hung out with me all night so that we could pull off a ruse to get our roommates together.” 

It hits her, suddenly and forcefully and out of nowhere, that _fuck_ , Remus was right. Really, she’s been piecing it together all night, the fact that James fancies her and is doing an increasingly shit job of hiding it, but for some reason, right now, looking into eyes that are inches from her own as he suggests that she somehow _settled_ for him, is when it finally all comes together.

“I’m the one who _proposed_ Valentine’s Day as the day to do this, if you remember correctly,” she points out. “And this definitely wasn’t a pity date. There’s no one else I would’ve rather spent Valentine’s Day with.”

“There wasn’t?” Even in the barely-there light, she can see the dumbfounded look on his face.

She shakes her head, feeling a sudden rush of courage come on as she answers him. “Nope. Although ideally, it would’ve ended a little differently.”

“How?”

She’s completely overcome by that boldness and leans in closer to him, so that their foreheads are practically touching. “Like this,” she says softly, mere millimeters from his lips.

And then she closes that last little space and kisses him. It’s just a soft, gentle press of her lips to his, and then she pulls back.

It takes exactly six seconds for James to react. (She counts.)

“Lily?” he squeaks.

“Mmhmm?”

“Am I asleep right now?”

She hums. “Depends. If you were, would this be a dream or a nightmare?”

“Dream,” he answers immediately, fervently. “God, _definitely_ a dream.”

“Then you are most definitely, very much awake,” she replies, a grin splitting across her face. “And I am very much telling you, in a very much not-a-dream way, that I’ve wanted to do that for _months_.”

“You have?”

“Yes,” she nods, “and I thought I’d been _blatantly_ obvious about that and that you’d decided to ignore it because you didn’t feel the same way, but I’m starting to think that maybe you’ve _actually_ just been a completely oblivious idiot the entire time.”

He laughs loudly at that, bursting the quiet little bubble between them. “You’re saying you made it obvious? Are you seriously saying you _haven’t_ noticed just how many times I’ve made a complete fool of myself talking to you because I fancy you something awful and my brain literally just forgets how to operate normally whenever you’re around?”

She couldn’t fight off the grin on her face even if she wanted to. “I think we can both admit we’ve been a bit thick-skulled and move on with things.”

There’s a sparkle in his eyes that’s visible even in the dark. “Move on with things as in…?”

“I’ve done a lot of putting the pieces together tonight,” she replies, teasing him. “I think you can get this one.”

He picks up on _that_ hint with remarkable ease, and it’s all of fifteen seconds until he’s pulling her on top of him and snogging her like his very life depends on it.

She immediately goes to straddle him, knees digging into the mattress on either side of him as any breath of air between them is effectively eliminated.

And _fuck_ if this doesn’t feel like everything she’s ever wanted. Her hands instantly find a place in his hair, running the silky strands through her fingers like she’s imagined doing only thousands of times before. He seems to like _that_ immensely, his deep hums of pleasure working their way into the kiss.

He tastes like peppermint toothpaste - _her_ peppermint toothpaste - and she thinks to herself that she has to be going completely mad with the way that it’s suddenly the best thing she’s ever tasted, because really, she brushes her teeth with it every damn night and it’s never been anything special before, but on James, it’s suddenly addictive.

Although maybe, perhaps, it’s not the _taste_ of his lips at all, but just the fact that they’re _his_.

Yes, that’s it, that’s the addictive part.

His hands run along her sides, almost as if still deciding where they want to rest, or maybe just trying to touch as much of her as he can. She knows the feeling well - she wants that too, wants to know every single inch of his skin and find out what it feels like against her own.

Despite that, she breaks the kiss, sitting up on top of him, taking a moment to enjoy the picturesque scene that is a very thoroughly snogged James Potter. His hair is thoroughly mussed, looking even wilder than usual, and his lips are slightly swollen. His chest rises and falls rapidly, and she can feel underneath her fingers still on his shoulder that his heart is pounding.

 _She_ did that.

His hands trail up over her hips again, this time on the outside of her top instead of underneath it. 

“This thing is… _fucking hell_ , Evans,” he says breathlessly, repeating his same words from earlier as he runs over the lace with his fingers. He’s looking at her with what can really only be described as wide-eyed wonder - and unlike before, he’s not shifting his gaze away this time. “You look incredible in it.”

Her lips quirk into a smile at that and blood rushes to her cheeks - there’s something in his expression that makes her feel like she’s magic, like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

And god, if that doesn’t make him fall for him just a little bit more.

“Really?” she replies teasingly, running her hands along the fabric herself. “What about out of it?”

And with one smooth motion, she undoes the clasp on the back, letting it fall off of her completely.

For the… she’s honestly lost count at this point, maybe _ninth_ time tonight, James is rendered entirely speechless.

But what he lacks in words, he very quickly makes up for in actions, abruptly grabbing her by the waist and flipping her so that she’s on her back, and he’s on top of her, pressing her into the mattress, lips locked with hers once again. They’re skin-to-skin now, and everything inside of Lily feels like a goddamn inferno, like she’s burning up from the inside out as James runs his thumb along the underside of her breast.

She gasps when he drops his head lower, nipping once at her pulse point before pressing kisses all the way down her neck and chest. And when he flicks his tongue over her nipple, she immediately arches into him, a familiar heat winding up in her gut because _good god_ , he’s everything. She can feel him, hard, against her thigh, as he continues to lavish her, mouth on one breast as his hand caresses the other.

And it’s fucking brilliant, all of this, but she wants, _needs_ more. She’s about to say as much, but James, practically reading her mind - something he’s suddenly gotten very good at in the past few minutes, despite absolutely fucking sucking at it for _months_ \- moves his hand to the waistband of her shorts, looking up at her.

“Is this - can I - ”

He doesn’t even have to finish the sentence before she’s nodding. “Yes, please, god, yes,” she replies, almost incoherent, reduced to an utterly desperate mess at the way he’s somehow able to predict exactly what she wants.

She lifts her hips as he pulls the tiny shorts off of her, making very quick work of throwing them to the floor next to them. 

And then he’s kissing her neck as his hand slides between her thighs and she really thinks she might just come undone right then and there. The combination of everything - his touch, his kiss, the heat of his body against hers - it’s so much all at once and she’s completely and totally engulfed by it. His touch is gentle at first, and _god_ , she’s making the most _pathetic_ whimpering sounds as he runs his fingers along the length of her.

“God, you’re so wet,” he says against her neck, swirling his fingers against her clit, eliciting a moan from her lips as she throws her head back into the pillow even harder.

Her hands run down his back, moving to his stomach, down that trail of hair she’d been eyeing earlier tonight, and finally her hand dips under the waistband of his boxers and she wraps her fingers around him.

James, for his part, clearly wasn’t expecting that, because he swears loudly and his hand stills for the briefest of moments.

She starts to stroke him, and now it’s _his_ turn to groan against her skin, muttering half-audible nonsense that’s vaguely along the lines of ‘fucking brilliant’ and ‘god, Lily.’

“Okay, I - if you don’t stop that soon, I’m going to have to add yet another thing to the already long list of ways I’ve embarrassed myself tonight,” he eventually tells her, his voice low.

She stills, but her lips turn upwards into a smile as she removes her hand from inside his boxers. “Should I get a condom?” 

James exhales. “Shit, yeah, that would - if that’s what you want, that is.”

She kisses him, short and sweet as she brings a hand up to his cheek. “I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t,” she replies, before squirming her way out from under him and over to her nightstand.

In the top drawer is a box of condoms, still unopened from when she bought them at the beginning of fall term, before she knew she was going to spend the next five months only having eyes for the boy down the hall instead of bringing random blokes home from the bar on a semi-regular basis.

She grabs one and hands it to James, who’s used the time she spent retrieving the wrapper to finally divest himself of those heart-print boxers. He tears open the foil packet and rolls it on, and then settles himself on top of her once more.

She’s positively buzzing when his eyes meet hers, and there’s an indescribable warmth and tenderness in them. She’s known she’s smitten with him, known that the feelings she has for him are something deep and wonderful and real, but right now?

Right now, she’s falling in love.

“You’re sure about this?” he asks again.

She’s never been so sure about something in her whole life - she’s made enough questionable decisions in her lifetime to know that this one is anything but. This - _James_ \- is something that she’s absolutely, one-hundred percent positive on.

She grins and messes with him, because at the end of the day, no matter what they’re doing, that’s what she does with him and she always will. “For fuck’s sake, yes I’m sure,” she says, feigning exasperation. “Now _please_ just stick your dick in me.”

He snorts. “Well, when you phrase it so eloquently…”

That sentence is left unfinished, and he takes a moment to adjust himself and then he’s driving into her and she’s officially off the deep end all over again. She grabs his face and kisses him soundly, swallowing his groans as he slowly starts to move inside of her.

The pace he sets is slow and deliberate, which mostly serves to drive Lily up the fucking wall. She wraps her legs around him, trying to pressure him into picking up the pace, but he doesn’t seem to want to take that cue.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispers, pinching her nipple between his fingers and inevitably enjoying the sound of her moan in response, “you’re amazing. Even better than I imagined.”

Even though he’s driving her mad, even though she can feel the knots forming in her stomach with every thrust, she manages to get out one last taunt, breathless as it may be. “You’ve imagined this before?”

He drops a kiss to her collarbone before answering, “Did you miss the part where I said I’d fancied you for five bloody months? Don’t act like you haven’t imagined fucking me either.”

She can’t argue with that. (Also, she notes to herself, his sudden self-assuredness is _really_ fucking hot. She’s not sure where it came from, but god, she’ll take it.)

“So tell me,” he adds, reaching in between them to rub her clit again and picking up the pace of his movements slightly, “am I better or worse than your imagined version of me?”

He doesn’t get a verbal answer to that, instead gets her fingernails digging into his back, gets another loud moan that she couldn’t have held back if she tried. She’s completely lost in it, lost in the sensation, lost in him.

And then all of a sudden, with one last purposeful drag of James’ fingers, the tension snaps. It’s nothing short of absolutely brilliant, letting the fire that’s been growing inside of her fully consume her. 

It only takes James’ hips rocking in sync with hers a few more times before he follows her into his own climax, letting loose a stream of only-slightly-coherent swears in hot breaths against her neck. The arm propping him up gives out, and his full weight is on top of her, pressing her fully into the mattress.

The weight of him against her is grounding somehow - like she might very well just float away if he wasn’t there keeping her attached to the earth.

She kisses his cheek gently, runs her fingers through his hair a few times, and softly whispers, “Better.”

He props himself up on his elbows again, looking her in the eyes. “Hm?”

“You asked me if this was better or worse than I’d imagined it would be,” she answers. “It was better.”

He leans down to kiss her at that, and she can feel him smiling into the kiss, this one much slower and lighter than the many ones before.

She really wouldn’t mind staying like that for a while, exploring all the many different ways that James Potter can kiss her, but his lips leave her own far too soon, as he rolls off of her, saying something about getting the condom off. She can’t fault him that, but it doesn’t stop her from hating the sudden cold when he’s gone.

When he comes back, she goes into the bathroom herself, and as soon as she’s done, she’s back in bed with him, his arm firmly wrapped around her and her legs intertwined with his.

He reaches up to push a strand of hair out of her face, hand lingering on the side of her face.

“I can’t believe we could’ve been doing that for _months_ ,” he eventually says, a wondrous sort of look on his face. “Five fucking _months_.”

“And to think, the only reason it _actually_ finally happened is because our roommates were fucking each other.”

His expression quickly shifts to one of mild disgust. “Eugh, why’d you have to remind me of that? We were having a perfectly nice moment where I _wasn’t_ thinking about the fact that I’m probably going to have to deep clean my entire flat tomorrow because there was no _way_ what we heard was happening in a bedroom.”

She kisses him once on the tip of his scrunched-up nose. “We don’t have to think about tomorrow just yet. Although, I guess, it’s probably past midnight anyways, so maybe it _is_ tomorrow - eh, whatever.”

He softens again, gently runs his thumb along her jaw, trails his hand down her neck, over her breast, around her waist. “So,” he begins, “does that mean it’s too late to call you my valentine?”

The smile that spreads across her face isn’t something she could fight even if she wanted to. She is completely, gloriously, incandescently _happy_. “I think we can probably make an exception on this one occasion, on one condition.”

“And that is?”

She wraps her arms around his neck, resting her forehead against his, barely a breath from his lips. “I get to call you mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think you can probably see now why this wouldn’t have fit in very well with the very next scene and remus ‘those were some, ah, interesting sex noises’ lupin

**Author's Note:**

> hi thank you for surviving to the end of this, i truly have no idea how this became as long as it did. also there's a lot of random nods to 9.9 out of 10 in here, because i'm now apparently the type of person who puts easter eggs for my stories in my other stories. also stay tuned bc i deleted half a smutty scene from this and once i finish it it's getting posted as an outtake :P
> 
> find me on [tumblr!](http://downn-in-flames.tumblr.com/)


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